


if the world comes tumbling down

by DirtyRottenRaskel



Series: i'm losing my mind and baby you're the reason [1]
Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, JJ Needs a Hug, M/M, Motorcycles, Snuggling, a lot of swearing, def some fluff at the end tho, head injuries, i really tried to write fluff ok, it just always ends up kinda angsty, little bit of cpr, luke sucks, sorta - Freeform, surfing accident, thornbank, topper is trying really hard to be better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24302332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DirtyRottenRaskel/pseuds/DirtyRottenRaskel
Summary: Of course it was Topper who found him.After nearly drowning John B. it’s only fitting that the same guy would then pull JJ from the water, leaving a bloody trail up the sand before he grabbed JJ’s board as well. Of course the guy JJ pulled a gun on is his knight in shiny fucking boat shoes.
Relationships: JJ/Topper (Outer Banks), Sarah Cameron/John B. Routledge, sarah Cameron/John B routledge (background)
Series: i'm losing my mind and baby you're the reason [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817701
Comments: 19
Kudos: 185
Collections: To remember and cherish





	if the world comes tumbling down

**Author's Note:**

> hey all!  
> i'm kinda obsessed with blood on my shirt, heart in my hand by cpressmn bc it is S O G O O D. i love this ship now.  
> it took me a hot second to write this, but we need more fics in this fandom lol  
> title is from honeybee by the head and the heart  
> plz enjoy & lmk what u think!

Surfing was really the only thing he had left.

Pope and Kie had each other, he  _ definitely _ wasn’t living with his dad anymore, John B. and Sarah were off in the Bahamas somewhere ( _ not dead. They weren’t dead. _ ), and so JJ found himself at the Chateau more often than not. He kept his board there, right next to John B.’s so he would have it when they came back. 

Tonight, of course, had really good waves. Storms tended to do that. Now, he hadn’t been out in a storm since John B. and Sarah left, but come on man, the waves! How could you pass them up! They were begging to be ridden! 

It’s not like he had anything to prove, not like maybe, if he survived this storm, maybe they could have survived sailing straight into one ( _ because shit, they did, didn’t they. They were driven straight into a storm. In a tiny ass boat. A tiny ass boat JJ had given them. Fuck. _ ) So yeah. Absolutely nothing to prove. Nothing he was running from. Not at all. 

Not to mention, he had surfed plenty of storms before. Nothing had gone wrong then, nothing will go wrong now. 

Until it did. Apparently, surfing alone, in the middle of a storm, without who was practically his brother, was a bad idea. 

The waves were choppy, rain pounding into him sideways, off his board. Salt water filled his nose, his throat as he trashed his way to the surface, or what he thought was the surface. There was no sunlight to guide him, and the storm was shoving the water in every direction. His lungs burned as he tried to claw his way up, only to have a searing pain erupt from the back of his skull, burning hot, followed by  _ coldcoldcold _ , and his lungs gave out, and the light show behind his eyes faded to black. 

Of course it was Topper who found him. 

After nearly drowning John B. it’s only fitting that the same guy would then pull JJ from the water, leaving a bloody trail up the sand before he grabbed JJ’s board as well. Of course the guy JJ pulled a gun on is his knight in shiny fucking boat shoes. 

It’s not Topper’s fault he was out in the storm, ok? Storms fucked him up. PTSD or some shit like that. That’s what his therapist was always rambling on about. 

Anyways. He had grabbed his bike, and sped off into the pounding rain, clothes soaked through in an instant. Maybe he decided to do a loop on the beach. You know, just in case they maybe decided to come back. 

He was out on the Pouge side of the cut (all that stuff seemed so bullshit now), when he saw a figure out in the waves. For half a second, he hoped it could be them, but no. It was only one person, an absolute dumbass, out here in the water in the middle of a fucking storm. He’s not one to talk, but still. 

Then, he saw the board slip out from underneath him (it was a guy judging by his frame), and hit the back of his head. 

Topper didn’t even think, he was halfway down the beach before he even blinked, diving into the relentless waves, head popping up to gasp for breath and to find where this dip shit went. 

Wheezie said he shouldn’t curse so much, but what the fucking ever. The girl he loved was out with another guy, and probably dead, so if he didn’t feel like watching his mouth, he wasn’t fucking going to. 

_ Maybe you didn’t love her as much as you thought,  _ part of his brain whispered _. Maybe you just wanted her (anyone) to love you back.  _

He huffed, blinking the rain and the ocean out of his eyes, scanning the water. His foot struck something, something solid, and hopefully human like. 

Topper took a deep breath and plunged into the freezing water. He found the figure by the steady stream of bubbles escaping his lips, and from the edges of his wetsuit. Dark blood filled the water around his head. Topper grabbed him by the shoulders, and kicked to the surface, pulling the other guy’s body flush against his own as he kicked them back to shore. 

The guy’s board was thankfully still strapped to his ankle, so that came with them as well. 

When they got to shore, Topper looked up, saw nothing but clumps of trees and what looked like a shack type thing in the distance. He hauled the limp blonde up the beach, silently thanking his dad for all the times he had made him run drills in the sand ( _ “It’s just better conditioning son, simple as that,” he had said _ ), for now, it was not only wet, and raining, but he was dragging a six foot man thirty yards up the beach to a building he prayed to God had at least some type of supplies. 

The whole time, the blond didn’t move, his body pliant and lifeless in Topper’s arms. 

Finally, they made it to the house, Topper dragging them both inside and depositing him on the couch. He reached over to flip the lights on, except, nothing happened. 

Great. The power was out. Fucking storms. Stupid shitty houses. 

The body on the couch still hadn’t moved. He rushed over, realizing that oh shit, he might have just pulled a corpse from the water, oh fuck. 

His hands found the side of his neck, mostly by feel, since it was still stupid dark out, and breathed a shaky sigh of relief at the thready pulse he found there. 

Was he breathing though? Topper put the back of his hand right over the guy’s nose and mouth, (shaking slightly - but no one was around to see that so it was fine). 

Nothing. 

No movement. No faint breath of air. Nothing. 

Topper swore. CPR training sucked ass. CPR, for real, in the fucking dark, was unfathomably sucky. 

He pinched the nose shut, felt his way around tipping the guy’s head back, and sealed his mouth over his as best he could. 

He breathed out, hand on his abs (oh fuck he was kinda ripped) to make sure the air went in his lungs and not into his stomach (he really didn’t want this guy to puke all over him). 

Three breaths later, the body beneath him seized and sputtered, spitting water out onto the floor, gasped in a breath, and collapsed back onto the sofa with a low groan. 

Topper thanked every saint he could think of, not needing another death on his conscience. After making sure his breathing was still steady, Topper ran outside, making the board was stashed behind the trees (listen, this side of the island was still a little....sketchy...at times). 

Realizing he couldn’t see a damn thing, and this house shack thing had no supplies, he had to get him and this kid outta here. The only question now, was how. 

He ended up maneuvering the kid onto his back, so Topper was essentially giving him a piggyback ride. He then loosened the straps of his backpack and threaded both of their arms through it, and tied the strap flaps around his waist, securing the other guy as best he could. 

The pouring rain had yet to let up, which made their journey back to Topper’s house that much worse. None of the hospitals would be open, and even if they were, they tended to ask questions Topper didn’t have the answers to, so his house it was. Thankfully, his parents were on the mainland or something. His mom had a big dermatology conference or something. 

Topper always loved riding at night, in the dark, only his headlights on the road, with the roar of the ocean and his engine in his ears. No one to give him cold, disapproving looks, no one to get on his ass about never good enough. It was just pure freedom. Now though, adrenaline was spiking through his body for a very different reason, since he literally had an unconscious human on his back. 

A rather fit, boy type human, his stupid brain supplied, unhelpfully. 

After what felt like ages of winding streets and unsteady gusts, Topper’s house rolled into view. He pulled into the garage, found the generator and turned it on, so they could have at least a bit of electricity. Kook life, ya know. 

He unstrapped the other boy from his back, and carried him in through the garage, up the stairs (his legs were killing him at this point), and dropped him on the couch in his room. Stopping to check that he was still breathing, Topper put a soft hand on his chest, and felt it move with a pained breath. He stumbled to the bathroom and gathered all of his medical supplies he had stashed in there. 

Years of being friends with Rafe and Kelce has made him a top notch medic. Knowing the generator would have kicked in by now, he flipped on the light. 

Bright light filled the room, needlessly harsh after so long in the dark. Topper quickly turned it off, and turned on some of his lamps instead. Depositing the supplies, he turned to come face to face with unfocused blue eyes. Eyes he knew. Eyes he had previously only seen filled in anger. Eyes that belonged to the very person who had held a gun to the back of his head. 

Eyes that belonged to JJ Maybank. 

He blinked. 

JJ blinked back. 

“What, the ever-loving fuck where you doing, out in the middle of the fucking ocean, during a damn storm, you dumb fuck!” Topper exploded. His hands threaded through his hair in exasperation as he paced back and forth in front of the couch. 

The blond flinched, shrinking back in the cushions, eyes flicking towards the door. Closed. Probably locked. Shit. 

Topper kept yelling, the words and beratements fading into background noise as JJ quietly slipped out of his own head. 

Head down, eyes averted, and maybe he wouldn’t get hit this time. 

Halfway into his tirade on carelessness and self preservation, Topper noticed JJ hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even said a word, which was highly unlike the snarky asshole he usually was. 

He crouched in front of him, trying to catch his gaze again, and realized the blond was mumbling an apology, something about “better next time” and “sorry” and “please don’t.” Topper reaches out a hand to put it on JJ’s shoulder when the other boy jerked back, head slamming into the wall as his whole body recoiled from the touch. 

“Wait, JJ man, are you...” he stumbled over his words, “are you good dude?” 

JJ let out a sharp, wicked laugh at that. 

“Aww, the pretty boy Kook is worried if I’m ok. How touching,” he spat. 

“You think I’m pre- hold up, you’re bleeding. Let me help.” 

Topper rifled through the supplies at his side, finding gauze, hydrogen peroxide, and some roller bandages. 

JJ rolled his eyes, “It’s fine man, nothing I haven’t dealt with from my old man before.” 

Topper blached. “Your old man what? What are you talking about?” 

Sliding down the back of the couch, JJ sighed, “I mean it was my fault anyways, I told him I was leaving. That’s why I was surfing actually, I just needed to be...not home for a while.” 

He let out a humorless chuckle again, before wincing. 

Topper noted that, knowing how laughing can often aggravate an injured rib. While he gets into fights a lot less now (it’s hard to fight when you don’t leave your house), he still remembers a lot of his more painful injuries. 

He reached towards the neck of JJ’s wetsuit, going to pull it down so he could assess him. 

“Hey man, I need to check your injuries, do you mind if I, uh,” he trailed off, gesturing towards the suit. 

JJ raked his eyes over Topper’s (admittedly rather fit) body, and leered at him. 

“If you wanted to get into my pants sooner babe, you could have just asked,” he said, but made no move to stop Topper. 

“I think I just did,  _ babe _ ,” he shot back, confident that the dark was hiding his blush. 

JJ sighed, and let Topper peel the suit off of him. Inch by inch, his tanned skin was revealed in the soft light of the lamp. Mottled bruises started to appear too, the further down JJ’s chest the suit went. Old yellow and green ones covered his left shoulder and peck (“Got thrown into a door last week,” JJ explained), clashed with the new red purple on the underside of his ribs (“Oh yeah, those were today. Told him I was leaving and Luke, well. Let’s just say he wasn’t a fan of letting me go without a farewell gift.”). 

Pulling the suit down past his hips, Topper cringed, hand flying up to shield his eyes from the revelation that JJ has gone commando under the wetsuit. 

“Come on, like you don’t? Makes you feel like one with the water. Gotta try it out sometime,” he reasoned. 

Topper shook his head and crossed the room, digging out an old pair of boxers and a faded t-shirt for JJ to pull on after he shucked the rest of the suit off. 

He turned to see JJ dressed in his clothes, a little baggy on him as they hung off his frame, because despite being just a hair shorter, he was definitely more built. A thrill of possessiveness curled through his body, quickly followed by a thought of “what the fuck.” 

JJ has started bandaging himself in the time where Topper had stood rooted to the floor, mouth slightly agape as he just stared. 

Slowly, he made his way over, and sat down next to him. 

“Let me help check your ribs, ok?” he asked. 

At JJ’s nod, Topper ran his hand gently back and forth over his ribs. 

JJ shivered at the way the other boy’s fingers left trails of heat after them, so gentle, even as they brushed over his tender ribs. He let him continue his ministrations, almost holding his breath, secretly hoping he would never stop. 

Wow, JJ’s life was fucked up if the only source of comfort he found anymore was literally at the hands of his enemy. 

Those same hands rolled JJ’s (actually Topper’s shirt, since he was borrowing it) down, and went up to probe at his head. Topper grunted, frustrated at his inability to see what he was doing. 

He picked JJ up and maneuvered him until he was facing the back of the couch and gently pressed his head against the top of it. 

Topper sat behind him, his warm thighs framing JJ’s own as he held him in place. They were pressed together, back to chest, from shoulder to hip. JJ bit the soft fabric of the couch to keep his wildly situationally inappropriate moan from escaping his mouth. 

Kind, warm fingers combed through his hair, breaking up the little knots formed by the days of salt and sand his strands had been subjugated to. Topper gently pulled each strand back into place, making sure they were all in order. 

JJ was convinced he had died and this was heaven maybe, and he never wanted to leave. 

After he was satisfied with his hair, Topper gently pushed back the strands at the nape of his neck, exposing where his board had hit him. 

He grabbed a glaze pad, soaked it in hydrogen peroxide and held it just above JJ’s head. 

“I’m sorry, but this is probably going to hurt like a bitch,” he grimaced, before dabbing the bloodied wound with it. 

To JJ’s credit, he merely let out a long string of breath, teeth gritted together. He retracted his earlier statement, this was definitely hell. 

Just as quickly though, the pain stopped as Topper pulled his hand back. 

It came back, with a fresh gauze pad that he gently pressed to the now clean wound, and wound the roll of bandages around his head to keep it on, tracing the path he wrapped with his fingers to make sure it was tight enough to stay on, but not too tight to hurt. 

Topper carded his hands through JJ’s hair again, soothing it down before pulling away, off the couch, leaving JJ’s back cold and exposed. 

“Hey,” he whined, hating how needy it sounded. “Where are you going?” 

“I’m grabbing water, you dumbass,” he responded, grabbing two bottles from his mini fridge before sitting down next to JJ again. 

“Of course you have a freaking fridge in your room, jackass” he muttered. “But, thank you.” 

“Yeah, no, it’s - it’s all good man,” Topper responded. 

He reached over to grab the remote from the other side of the couch, and ended up just laying across it, too exhausted to sit up. He turned on the tv, and flipped to whatever DVD he had last put in, some old 80’s movie or something, since the towers were likely down. 

He put the volume on low, and turned the lamps off, letting the TV wash them both in soft white light. 

“I don’t think you’re supposed to sleep with a concussion,” Topper chided when he saw JJ’s eyes dropping shut. 

JJ huffed, but sat up a little more. 

“Why do you even care dude? Why have you been so ridiculously nice to me? Why did you even bother to save me?” he asked, refusing to look at Topper. 

“I guess I couldn’t stand seeing anyone else hurt,” he replied. 

He let out a shaky breath. 

“I just, I really miss them,” Topper admitted quietly. 

“Me too,” JJ said, voice thick with tears. “Me too.” 

Topper reached out, and pulled the shorter boy into him, so that he was laying in front of him on the couch. His arm lay across JJ’s chest, fingers tracing senseless patterns on his collarbone from where it poked out under his shirt. 

“Shit’s not fair,” Topper whispered, “We were supposed to get married, and be successful and have this stupid perfect life or whatever. And now, I don’t even know what I want, my parents think I’m a walking disappointment, and Sarah is probably dead in the middle of the ocean somewhere.” 

“Nah,” JJ disagreed. “They made it. Those crazy bastards had to have made it. But yeah, you’re right about one thing. Shit certainly ain’t fair.” 

He tilted his bandaged head up to look Topper in the eyes. 

“And for the record,” he said, “I happen to think that maybe you have redeemed yourself into Not-the-Worst-Kook-I-Know-Anymore.” 

JJ swallowed. 

“Thank you, though,” he whispered. “For everything.” 

  
  


Topper nodded. “Anytime, dumbass. Anytime.” 

JJ shifted back, readjusting on the stupidly comfortable Kook couch, in this stupid Kook house, after having his life saved by the stupid Kook who owns all this dumb shit, but it’s fine. Two of his friends are MIA, the other two he hasn’t seen in days, and he really has nowhere else to go. JJ is a little hard up on options right now, and if Topper (who is a lot less terrible now, especially after helping John B. in the church and then pulling JJ from the water) is extending this weird ass peace offering of bandages and positive human contact, then by God he might just take it. 

**Author's Note:**

> might be a little ooc but idc lol  
> i might make another one bc wow i just really like these two together, which is super weird but i lowkey see how it could work  
> thanks for reading! comments and kudos always appreciated :))  
> if u want, come say hi on my [tumblr](https://dirtyrottenraskel.tumblr.com/)


End file.
